US congress concerns about Yasukuni Issue

During a congress hearing regarding Japan’s diplomacy in Asia yesterday, several U.S. congressmen showed their concerns over Koizumi’s Yasukuni shrine visit.

Co-host of the hearing, titled Japan’s Relations with Its Neighbors: Back to the Future?, Congressmen Lantos(D-CA), said,

"My massage to Japan’s incoming Prime Minister is very simple, paying respects to the war criminals is morally bankrupt and unworldly for a great nation such as Japan. This practice MUST END.”

Chairman of Congress International relations committee, Congressman Hyde(R-PA)， who blocked Mr. Koizumi’s attempt to give a speech in the US Congress on a visit to Washington this April, also criticizes the Yasukuni Shrine’s newly open museum hall, 遊就館, he said, that it is perplex that (the exhibit of the hall) focus Japan as a liberator to free other parts of Asia from invasion of Western imperialism.

Republican congressman Rohrabacher of California, point out China’s role in Japan’s foreign policy with the U.S.,

“Chinese regime in Beijing, which is a dictatorship, wants to drive at a wedge between the U.S. and Japan, they would like us to focus on the past.”

I don't see why the U.S. should not concern about the Yasukuni issue, I am only surprised that why it takes so long to get here. Now that U.S. Congress has voiced out concerns, the ball is now in the President Bush's court, for him to throw the ball to Japan's leaders.